


Rescue

by alextheghostdrummer



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alex Manes Needs a Hug, BAMF Alex Manes, Blood and Injury, Domestic Fluff, Eventual Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, Kyle Doctor Valenti, Light Angst, M/M, Michael Guerin Loves Alex Manes, POV Michael Guerin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:06:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24483238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alextheghostdrummer/pseuds/alextheghostdrummer
Summary: michael guerin finds alex manes who saves himself
Relationships: Alex Manes & Kyle Valenti, Michael Guerin & Kyle Valenti, Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Kudos: 87
Collections: Home in your arms





	1. Rescue

**Author's Note:**

> hey, so i have this idea for a three part ficlet where alex bad ass manes saves himself and michael guerin takes care of him. hope you like t :)

Under the searing 3PM sun, Michael Guerin is inside his truck setting a heavy foot on its accelerator. Wind gushing swiftly through the half opened windows as sweaty palms steer the vehicle impetuously into a seemingly abandoned and grey schemed facility. It took him a week, extensive research and a grudging acceptance of help from Liz and Max but at last, he found Deep Sky’s headquarters where he knew Alex was being held against his will. 

For all the disgrace Project Shepherd caused his very own existence, the cowboy was, in fact, relieved that files with detailed intel about the paramilitary organization were found inside the bunker. Thankful would be an emotion he would never use to associate with the genocidal operation but then again, he wasn’t a very sensible person, even less when it meant the love of his life was in danger. Since Alex Manes was in the Air-force, had computer hacking skills and was getting in too deep with otherworldly affairs he was high up the rank of people of interest for Deep Sky, which justify his kidnapping. 

Getting to the site took hours of driving and relentless anxiety pulsing through his veins but he was finally there, nothing would stop him. Stamping rapidly towards the entrance was the epitome of reckless in his brother’s conception, although he rushed out of the bunker too fast, without giving him appropriate time to discourse about why “that is a bad idea, Michael”. Perchance, if he was somebody else, with a different personality or with better impulse control he would’ve given the people around him a chance to strategize, but he wasn’t, and the airman was running out of time. 

Thankfully, he wouldn’t have had to, because there was Alex, limping, scarred, bloody and yet unconquerable, unmatched, fleeing from his captor’s hands. Michael swiftly reached towards the passenger’s door belligerently and, subsequently, jumping out of his truck to carry him over his shoulder. He positions the man sat, hurls the door and runs to the driver’s side. The echo of screaming wheels and tire marks are all that are left before armed man helplessly make it outside. 

Awkwardly, Michael turns his head to find them getting smaller by the second as he stumps the accelerator. He turns to Alex who is slowly fading, left hand losing force against what he assumes in a bullet wound close to his spleen. 

“Alex!”, he shouts letting the powerlessness sink in at the sight before his eyes

“I’m awake, Guerin. My head is killing me but I’m awake”, he says smugly 

“Stay with me, okay?”, he pleads, fear throbbing his very own being

Alex lightly nods, closing his eyes then forcing them to open, his rapid breathing is deafening. An idea, better yet, a name dawns on Michael: “Valenti”, he mutters confidently. Clumsily, he reaches out to his phone inside his pocket and scans through his latest calls and when he spots his name, he taps over it aggressively.

“Valenti!”, he screams, with overwhelming relief, since the doctor picked up his phone on his first attempt to call him

“Guerin?!”, Kyle responds with a tone that matched Michael’s, despite his undoubtful confusion

“I found him! Go to the cabin, he is bleeding, Kyle, it’s bad, very bad”, he implores 

“I’m on my way” 

The cowboy let’s his phone willingly slip out of his hand, hitting his thigh. Both trembling hands held on to the steering wheel as he fought tears, once again let his focus drift to the wounded man beside him. If he didn’t know any better he’d assume Alex is enjoying the view of the outskirts of the town, but given the fact that he does, he assumes the airman is using one of his military tactics to keep himself awake.

“How many did you fight?”, Michael breaks the silence

“Too many to count” he answers, with a self-satisfied smile, one that accentuates the bloody mess under his nose

Heavy breaths created a symphony of pain and despair in evenly measure. 

“You’re gonna be okay, Alex” he reassures the man, as much as he tries to reassure himself

Alex gives a dull sympathetic smile in return, and as always, the cowboy gets ratification once more that the Manes man will, regardless of the extent of his wounds, put others first. 

Dreadful is the realization of how empty the lot in front of the cabin looks, nevertheless, the cowboy promptly gets out his truck and holds in his hands a barely conscious Alex Manes. Horrified at how limp and heavy his body against his own, Michael hurries inside the property, praying that if there is a God, let him prove his own existence by letting the airman live. He carries him hurriedly and lies him down on the sofa, crouching beside him. He feels the other man slipping through his hands. 

The ajar door swings, forth and back, only slightly, to the eyes of an intent observer, one who is hopelessly staring at it, each movement counts one second less to save Alex’s life. It mocks him witting of the amount of time he wasted chasing his own tail, after something unfulfilling in comparison to holding the airman once more. 

Back and forth it moves.

“I swear Alex, if you make it out alive, I promise you I will waste no time in coming back to you”

Back.  
“Please, Alex, I’m begging you, please”

Forth.

“Please, Alex, I need you”, he cries out, leaning his forehead against the airman’s

The door slams loud against the cabin’s wall and a heroic Kyle Valenti moves steadily towards one dying Alex Manes. An emergency kit in his hand and determination in his eyes, he demands: “Put him on the table”

Michael does as he is told, no questions ask, not even a single word is uttered. He throws whatever is on the coffee table onto the ground and sets Alex onto it. He takes the airman’s t-shirt off. “Apply pressure to the gunshot”, the doctor instructs, he obliges. Fist, Valenti wears the rubber gloves. A beaming silver forceps surfaces out of the medical kit and, alongside it, a tiny bottle of a mix of neutral soap and water and a small towell. Then, immediately flips the bottle upside down onto the piece of fabric, and pushes the cowboys away from the wound, cleaning it thoroughly. Whilst, with bloody hands, Michael checks for a pulse. He finds a faint pulse.

“This injury it’s not so deep”, says Kyle using his doctor tone as if the cowboy was any other family member in the emergency room of a hospital. He carries on: “Which means the bullet missed major arteries and organs. He is going to be okay. He’s lot of blood due to not only the gunshot wound but what I’ve gathered is a broken nose, a concussion given his black eye and multiple cuts. And he is severely dehydrated. Luckily I came prepared”, he points to the medium size Styrofoam box. “Grab me the IV stands in my trunk, please”, he tosses his car keys, “I’m gonna patch up his wound, stitch him up and bring him to the bed”, he explains.

“Michael, hurry”


	2. Rescue - Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the aftershock of alex almost dying *spoiler alert* i guess

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you like this one, it was kinda funny to write. it reminded me of why i like michael guerin so much

Michael is painfully aware of the incessant tapping of his foot to the hard wood floor but it’s either that or pacing around the cabin like a disoriented pigeon. It’s been 3 hours since Kyle Valenti came to his rescue. Kyle had used the coffee table as a makeshift operating table and Alex’s bed as a hospital bed with IV stands, physiological solutions and a single blood bag. He checked his pulse and his breathing twice now; further check-up procedures had been delayed due to the fact that there is a sound asleep Alex Manes on the bed. Michael Guerin is, unsurprisingly, very impatient at this point.

t’s a very mild catch twenty-two. If he wakes Alex up, despite of getting factual confirmation that he is, indeed, alive, he will be wittingly disturbing his sleep, the sleep of a man who was held captive for a week with little to no food and water, a man who was tortured and shot. No matter how selfish he believes himself to be, he couldn’t fathom that thought. Nevertheless, if he doesn’t wake him up, says the very traitorous voice in his brain, he risks letting him slips through his hands once again, like blood water. 

He can’t pick his poison so he taps his feet. 

Staying in Alex’s room pacing tirelessly isn’t an option either: there´s a risk of awaking him before his body is ready, the kindness of remained hypervigilance from war. Post – traumatic disorders.  
He look at his phone: 6:15 PM. His mind queries if he should make Alex a meal. Finally, he can make himself useful, as an alternative to suffer the dreadful disarray in his own brain. Michael was assigned to the task to care for Alex, whatever he needs. But as it turns out he is the one who needs a sitter. 

He gets up from the couch, on his feet, and moves surreptitiously to the kitchen. The cowboy crouches and opens the small cabinet under the sink. Squeak, says it’s door, clamorously. Michael closes his eyes forcefully and pouts, wishing he had never been born. As he opens his eyes, a grunt emerges from the bedroom. “Fuck”, he thinks to himself.

The otherworldly being rests his body against the threshold of the airman’s bedroom, marveling at what it’s before him: Alex, the heels of his hand to his eyes, itching them as he yawns. “Fucking finally”, Michael thinks.  
“What time is it?”, the only Mane’s man he will ever love asks, his voice hoarse. Michael feels guilt and awe equally as he looks at the beautiful weary man before him.

“It’s 6:19 PM”, the cowboy states

“Fuck…”

“What?”, Michael puffs out a laugh, “Got somewhere to be?”

“No it’s just… I feel like a slept for a whole day”, he informs him, miserably

“Yeah, and you should, by the way, sleep for a whole day, you were kidnapped for a week. I doubt your dumbass bat an eye for even a second”, he says grinning playfully 

Alex can’t help his own grin from forming.

“I tell you what: are you hungry?”, Michael asks

“I don’t need a babysitter, Guerin”, he retorts, taking his IV tubes out of his forearm

“C’mon, Manes. Just let me take care of you, will ya?”, he pleads comically 

“I’m serious, Guerin. I’m fine”

“I know you can handle yourself, Alex. You always have. But you need to understand in that thick skull of yours that I want to be here. I don’t want to take my eyes off of you”, he admits

“Romantic”, says the brown-eyed man, sarcastically 

“I mean it, Alex. I thought I lost you about ten times today. I don’t ever wanna feel like that ever again”

Even not looking directly at him, Michael feels Alex’s pitiful eyes on him

“You can stay. As long as you clean up after yourself”

Michael giggles, perchance the first time in days, a full gut-trembling laugh. 

“What do you think I am? An animal?”

Alex just shrugs. 

“So, what do you wanna eat?” he questions him again

“Pasta”, Alex simply replies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm on tumblr @chillyourtitseatnoodles :)


	3. Rescue - Part III: I'd come back a thousand times

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> michael leaves alex a (love) letter after looking after him for a week

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> angst & fluff are the yin and yang of life. i hope you enjoy this angsty and fluffy final chapter

A week passed by

A full week of laughter, banter, occasional visitations from friends, his chosen family, and Michael’s unexpected culinary abilities and incapability to watch a movie without falling asleep.

A week and Alex wished that that could be his every day, that having Michael could be added to his every day. It was an odd feeling, truly, being taken to ten years prior in just a week. His young daydreams had materialized themselves in the span of seven days and, if he was religious, he might have thought that he died and went to Heaven. He looked different and the image staring back in the mirror could confirm that; his thoughts were different: consumed by numbers, patterns, data and information he wished to put away. But the moment the cowboy locked eyes with his, suddenly, he was an eighteen year-old again, a punk and a dreamer and the world didn’t seem so bleak anymore. Odd, endearing and terrifying all at once.

Convincing himself Michael shouldn’t be around for longer than that period was as hard as convincing the other man that he didn’t need to be taken care of anymore. “Honestly, I’m surprised you even let me stay for this long”, the otherworldly said whilst moving away from the front door of the cabin towards his truck, giving Alex one last glance as if to ask if he was sure once more. So the airman nodded. Now, sat the table, moving his pen pointlessly, tapping it on the table while being surrounded by files upon files he asked Kyle to bring him, he realizes he wished he hadn’t. 

Having Michael around was strikingly not as angst filled and woeful as he’d imagined it would be. In actuality, it was quite the opposite. It was… soft, like coming home to a warm shower after a storm. It was having dinner together sharing, astonishing as it might sound, home-cooked meals made by Michael Guerin himself. It was watching a movie after that, curled up against each other, as platonic as they could make it be, sometimes accompanied by the casual sexual tension they knew would have to surface one time or the other. It was waking up to him sleeping a few inches apart, with his back turned, peaceful in way Alex had never seen before. It was laughing until they were both crying hysterically and their stomachs were sore. “It was really good”, he thought to himself.

Albeit, it was all gone. Whatever that week was about, it was gone and the tormented and, occasionally, painful relationship they had, if could call it that, would have to return. He sighs, his hands reached his face and scoured it, as if to awake him from a blissful dream. Looking at the clock now, he realizes he must’ve been dreaming because another hour had passed and he still hadn’t eaten, too emerged in whatever other task he had written in a small notebook and/or fantasies of his treacherous brain. He gets up, starts to tidy up the table, pilling Project Shepherd files onto each other, safely closing browser tabs and cleaning his surroundings as much as he could. He trudges clumsily towards the bathroom, “Physiological necessities first”, he concludes to himself. 

After flushing the toilette, he turns on the tap and proceeds to wash his hands. His reflection is a tired one, unkind, doesn’t seem to concur with the peaceful and cheerful week that passed. The airman strokes his under-eye region lightly looking at the shades of purple that color it. It reminds himself that the robotic motion of washing his face and, his urge to take care of it to look more presentable to a certain cowboy, was not present today. “It’s been a few hours, Alex. You cannot fucking fall apart like this. It’s ridiculous” he mumbles, distraught. He made Michael leave after breakfast, he can’t understand why now. He opens the cabinet and is greeted by some of the products used in his routine and something else: a folded piece of paper. It caught his attention immediately since he knows this place, currently, like the back of his hand; there it was, hidden behind his belongings. If Alex Manes was anyone else he might’ve missed it, but he isn’t.

He grips it, plucking it from the back of the cabinet. The beating of his heart against his ribcage is a deafening sound. He swallows and opens it, apprehensive. 

Hey, Alex

I know this is unexpected and weird, even but I figured since I couldn’t bring myself to talk to you about some things, this will have to do. You look so peaceful while you’re sleeping right now, I’m staring into the ajar door and, man, holy fuck, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you like this. You are always so alert, cautious like there is an impending threat but this week I’ve seen you ease up enough times to know that that’s not always your reality and something in me, selfish as it might be, tells me that I helped with that and it makes me really fucking happy. I’m deflecting, I can see that. Fuck, I’m just gonna say it ok? I love you. Alex, I love you so much it hurts and there has nothing to do with our tragic history, it’s just… you. Holy shit I’m so bad at this, fuck. You, you light up my whole damn world and fucking hell I’m such a fucking idiot to take this long to realize that when it was so blatantly obvious. Even Max knew, but that’s a whole other story. Alex, I love you. I’m sorry it took me this long to say it but I do. I love you since we were seventeen and I don’t think I’ll ever stop. I love you so much I’d do anything for you, anything, anything really. It’s pathetic. I love you enough to let you leave me and come back to you when you want me to even if I don’t think I deserve you. I’m a selfish fucking prick so it doesn’t matter if I don’t think I deserve to be loved by you, I want to be, I want to be loved by you. If I was a better man I’d get better on my own before telling you all of this but I’m not Alex, but you already know that. I lost you enough times in this motherfucking decade to think I get to be selfish, I convinced myself I have the right to be when it comes to you. When I drove us to the cabin and felt you limp in my arms, I felt my world crumble and I wish it was me, Alex. I wish I was beat up black and blue like you were because I couldn’t take looking at you knowing I should have gone after you, I should’ve protected you, I shouldn’t have hurt you all the fucking time. I can’t lose you, I can’t afford the thought of it because it kills me, it does. I love you so much and I know you love me too, you cared for me even when I didn’t deserve it, even when I left. I will regret this decision and every single of them that didn’t lead me to spending my life with you. I promised I would tell you all of this once you woke up, but I’m a coward, I was afraid you would send me away and I just needed to be by your side. I couldn’t say it then but I’ll say it now: I love you and I want to be with you. Forever. Please, think about it.

Michael

Tears fell methodically, one by one, until the airman realized he was crying. He stared at the paper, tear stained, some of the tears fresh, others not so much, scribbled and hasty writing, he realizes the cowboy surely had a tight grip on that pencil, some of the words were scratched bluntly, the overall text seemed to be in a descending arch: the writing of a man who seemed to spill his train of thought onto that sheet of paper. Every single one of them involving him, Alex Manes. He leaves it over the sink. Changes his clothing. Grabs the paper. Leans over the sink holding onto one crutch. Shoves the paper inside his jeans pocket. Grabs the other crutch. Moves to the front door. Slams it shut.

He was about to give Michael Guerin a piece of his mind. 

\-------

“You had no right!”, the airman shouts as the car door crashes

Michael is seated in one decayed beach chair, the bonfire turning his hazel eyes a sort of orange, golden flecks glistening. He chugs a copious amount of beer and settles the glass bottle by his side. Next to the pack of beers.

“I take you read my letter. That explains the weird thread of texts asking me if I was here or to come here immediately”, he points as calmly as he could 

“Yeah, the letter you basically hid from me”, he takes the letter, now crumbled, out of his pocket and presents it in a swiping motion, “Did you want me to find it or not?”, he asks twitching his eyebrow upwards. He moves closer, slower than he was accustomed when he wore his prosthetics and sets the letter promptly onto Michael’s lap.

“I wanted you to find it, but I hoped you wouldn’t”, he mutters, now staring at letter 

“So what does this all mean?”, he gestures to the letter

“Haven’t you read the damn thing?”, he inquires now with a God-awful-beautiful smirk

“Of course I did, Guerin, but what is supposed to mean?” he asks, his voice sterner than before

Michael is gets on his feet, facing Alex, mere inches separate their bodies. He searches Alex’s face, and grins slightly, endearingly. 

“It means what it says it means. It means I love you and I want to be with you”, he replies with a soft tone to his voice and manners

Alex sighs, bewildered and angst filled. “It’s not fair”, he says, he appears and feels smaller than before.

“What’s not fair?”, the cowboy asks puzzled, without breaking his calm demeanor 

“That you get to say all that shit just because you thought I was going to die when I sat with gut-wrenching pain for months while you played happy-ever-after with my best friend and I said nothing. Not a fucking word.”, he spats, reckoning his words are cruel, spoken in such a manner too. Gathering the shift of the unked man’s body language, he imagines he has stroke a blow. Before he can say anything, Michael starts:

“I know. And I’m sorry. Like I said on the letter, I wish I could take it all back, but I can’t”, he lightly shrugs, dejected. “And I know you are debating in that big head of yours whether I meant anything I said when I chickened out of actually telling you how I feel and after all the shit I pulled, but I do. The sun has set Alex,” he gestures with both his hand in circular motion, “I wrote that letter a few days back and have carried it before leaving it in your cabinet this morning and I haven’t changed my mind. Not in the slightest fucking bit”, he affirms. “You once said to me that every time I look at you, you feel like you’re seventeen again. That’s how I feel every time I look at you. Ever since that day, first week of sophomore year, at the cafeteria, Max was helplessly staring at Liz, like the dumbass that he is”, he laughs, delighted by the mental image, “and like the good brother that I am, I was going to stare at her too to make the whole thing even more uncomfortable and, I saw you.”, he glances at Alex, “Mighty Alex Manes, in all his glory, emo t-shirt and all black outfit then you looked at me and my heart stopped. That’s when I knew that it wasn’t just bland admiration for how tough you were, but more

“Alex, we were seventeen and we barely knew each other but you gave me a place to stay, you gave me your safe haven, you gave me a guitar. Your kindness was unmatched and you didn’t owe me anything. You gave me hope, and despite my ‘hope is a dangerous thing’ bullshit that meant everything to me. You mean everything to me”, he lets a sob surface his now, trembling body.

Alex cups his jaw, and lightly strokes his cheeks with his thumbs, inhale a shaky breath and says: “If we are doing this, it means no more running, no more leaving. We are going to work through this, for better or for worse, it means forever”

Michael nods, placing his forehead against Alex’s, in concurrence: “It’s all I ever wanted”

They hold each other in a loving embrace. It feels like home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is named after a sara bareilles song called "1000 times" which btw is totally a malex song. hope you enjoyed this one

**Author's Note:**

> hope you liked it!  
> i'm on tumblr @chillyourtitseatnoodles


End file.
